Streaming media refers to a media format successively played in real time on the Internet by using a streaming transmission technology, for example, audio, video, or multimedia files. The streaming media technology is a network transmission technology in which successive images and sound information are compressed and put on a website server. A video server transmits packages to a user computer sequentially or in real time, such that the user downloads the packages while watching and listening, without the need to wait for downloading the whole compressed file to her own computer before watching.
However, in an existing streaming media server, a cache for a group of pictures (GOP) is generally provided on the server to improve the loading speed of a client player. After the client player sends a video playback request, the server may send the GOP in the cache to the client terminal, such that the client terminal may start playback immediately. Influenced by certain factors, the existence of the GOP may nevertheless delay the playback of the video. If the frame number in the GOP is set to be large, the caused delay for the video playback is also big. If the frame number in the GOP is set to be small, the caused delay of the video playback may be small, but the video quality may also be lower.